Fritz turns his serve loose on Arthur Ashe
Fourteen aces. One double fault. Taylor Fritz walked onto Arthur Ashe Stadium as the second match of Tuesday’s programme and walked off around 100 minutes later with a 6-3 6-2 6-4 win over fellow American Darwin Blanch.
The ninth seed landed 74% of his first serves and won 91% of the points behind them. In the opening set he lost a single point on first serve, then broke Blanch in the sixth game to settle the argument early.
Blanch is 18, a wild card, and this was his first main-draw match at Flushing Meadows. The errors piled up in the second set as Fritz converted his fourth break point of the fifth game and struck again in the seventh.
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The 2024 finalist finds his footing again
Fritz reached the final here two years ago and has spent the back end of this summer chasing that level. He won the title in Washington, then lost his opening match in Montreal, which left the question of which version of him would turn up in New York.
The third set answered it. Blanch sent a shot past the baseline on break point in the first game, and Fritz pressed from there. He faced two break points in the second game and wiped out both, one with an ace, the other with a backhand Blanch could not reach. An unreturnable serve closed the match.
“It’s never easy to come out and play another young American,” Fritz said, before turning on his own return game. “He gave me a lot of opportunities with some doubles, with some second serves.”
What comes next
Fritz meets Mattia Bellucci in the second round, the Italian having beaten Hungary’s Zsombor Piros in straight sets on Tuesday. The home crowd has had plenty to cheer already, with Frances Tiafoe and Ben Shelton both coming through Monday’s night session. The top half of the men’s draw, meanwhile, is already missing fourth seed Novak Djokovic, beaten in five sets by Mariano Navone on the opening day.
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